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Well, years ago one could read about different opinions concerning global warming. I remember an article in the "SPIEGEL" (big german magazin) where a biologist gave lecture on the benefits of a warmer climate. There were discussions e.g. about the Sahara and wether this desert would become more green or more dry.
Gradually the tone changed from a discussion to alarmism. We all had to change behaviour, drive less, heat less, eat less, but pay more to save the world. The west supposedly is responsible for drought in other countries, causing people to starve and to flee, for rising sea levels and so on. Peak of hysteria was a professor (for music) in the Austrian city Graz who demanded death penalty for everbody who denied a global warming. Todesstrafe für Leugner des Klimawandels (german).
Most opposite views vanished from the mainstream media and moved to blogs, many of them pretty scientific and backed up by data. Sahara is becoming greener, the number of polar bears is greater than some years ago, and the global climate does not match in any way the predictions made by the state scientists, it´s cooler. The rise of the sea level(s) is slowly but steadily the same til the end of the last ice age. The only source who comes to a different conclusion is NASA with satelitet data. NASA claims a higher rise, but its one source against many monitoring stations around the globe. And as we know, EU want the rising sea level to grant asylum for refugees.
The PIK, the "Potsdamer Institut für Klimaforschung" (institute for climate research) is completely state ownend. Everbyody can read their work in the net, they provide two variations: The first is pretty scientific, they admit that reality does not match predictions. The second is a much shorter dossier distributed among politics and media. And in this dossier one can read that every measure has to be taken to prevent the climate becoming hell.
Furthermore, the AGW fabrication is utilized e.g. by Angel Merkel to increase state power. 500 billions Euro are the costs of the so called "Energiewende" so far. Meanwhile even some mainstream media question this waste of money, however a small number of journalists (the best, of course) left the state media and make their own blogs. Politicians talk about banning the gas driven cars within the next 13 years or so. I personally hope they make it earlier. Still too many people are not aware how fascism sneaks in, and what of manness is left in Europe might fortuntately end in an uprise when they come and take away your car
regards
Andi

Just finished The Big Lie from Dinesh D´Souza.
Highly recommended. About the roots of fascism. Many interesting facts, most of them completely new to me, about the history of Democrats and their ties to slavery, rassism and their movements towards a centralized state, i.e. fascism.
Gives sound information and ammunition for the dicussion of Trump and his presidency. As suspected - the fascists are on the left.
regards
Andi

Actually, the group of scientists who spread the climate catastrophe is very small. But as usual, they get their money from the state and are backed up by the media.
The rest keep their mouths shut - if you do not sing with the chorus, you are a climate-denier, you are evil and do not care about the future, if you still argue you are a nazi. Most facts against the so called CO2 catastrophe come from retired scientists.
Same with the so called "Energiewende" in Germany, those ridiculous windmills: I know many engineers in Germany, but not a single one who is convinced this "technology" could work. I mean its easy - everbody with just basic physical knowledge knows that it won´t work, wind energy (or solar panels) is not sufficient to deliver power for an industrialized country.
But meanwhile there is whole industry depending on state money, e.g. many people make money letting a parcel of land for rent for windmills. They will never vote for any party who would want to stop this madness.
regards
Andi

Here is just one of many sites with facts: Lord Mockton Foundation
The temperatures do not match with the models. Temperatures are lower.
Redistributing wealth from the West to third world countries, as it happens now in the course of climate summits, does not change the climate.
The personal adviser of Angela Merkel, Joachim Schellnhuber, chief of the PIK and master mind behind the climate politics, openly advertises for a global CO2 bank that should issue CO2 certificates for every country on earth. Production is only allowed within this certificates. Food should be produced near the equator, while some industry would be allowed in colder regions. According to Schellnhuber global power should be held by 100 to 200 climate experts, watching the situation, and if danger is imminent, they "Quickly must invent a new world society".
Not even Karl Marx dreamed of such possibilities. Maybe the climate will be warmer in 100 years. However if the ideas of these maniacs would ever be implemented, there will be no mankind any more that could care.
Air pollution is a different topic. Many interesting facts can be found here: The moral case for fossil fuels
Energy consumption and wealth are correlated since mankind found out how to use fire. The wealthier a society, the cleaner is air and water, because only wealth allows the investments into technology for keeping the environment clean.
Thanks to President Trump, the climate train is a bit off the rails now
regards
Andi

If light or something else carrying information was faster than c, we would be in big trouble concerning causality. As said, different observers moving with different speeds at different positions in spacetime do not agree about wether events are simultaneous or not. Alien 65 million lightyears away from us see an asteroid falling onto earth in their "now", while our now here is in the 21. century.
But, and thats important, every observer, regardless of his position and speed, will agree to a causal chain of events. First an asteroid falls. Thereafter the dinosaurs go extinct. If information could move faster than light, there would be observers who would watch that it was the other way round.
To understand this, have a look at the Minkowski diagramm linked in a previous post. It is math drawn in a picture, and yes it is nothing that is normally understood by just reading it once. What I do: Just start reading. Make a pause. Then I try to remember what I have understood. It will be little, thats perfectly normal. Read again. Remember once more, wait til the next day, read again. I make some sports, run for an hour. Then comes the point where I get angry to be so stupid not to reenact what somebody else discovered Thats normally the push to go through it again, til it makes "click" and things are clear.
regards
Andi

What I did to get an idea of this, is to approach in steps.
The faster an object moves (relativ to c), the slower is time for this object. Lets say my son stays here and I make a trip with a fancy spaceship, able to reach a high percentage of c. According to the clock in my spaceship my journey lasts 2 years, so I spent 2 years at a speed close to the speed of light. Back on earth the pace of time of course did not change, relativ to me time moved faster on earth. So my son waited, e.g., 8 years til I am back again.
So in this example I travel with very high speed, my journey lasts 2 years of my time and a certain distance, nevertheless I am subject of 8 years waiting time for my son til I am back.
Now lets put this to the extreme. For a photon moving with c, time and distance are gone, nevertheless, for those on earth the pace of time is still the same. We still see light moving with 300000km/s and have to wait til it reaches us from outer space.
regards
Andi

At 17:10, "What we traditionally call selfish tendencies.......is only a narrow interpretation of what self- serving behaviour entails, wherein human characteristics are perceived through the flawed paradigm of identity". .... and "The psychological consequences of this as an objective believe system allow self awareness without attachment to an imagined self, causing dramatic increases in mental clarity, social conscience,...."
The video states that consciousness and the self (identity) is, so to speak, the result of calculations done by the brain. As far as I know this is correct. But why is the "paradigm of identity" flawed?
What is an "objective believe system"? If something is objective, there is no need to believe it.
And if somebody could explain to me how one can be self aware "without attachment to an imagined self", I would really appreciate this. But I do admit that all this meditation stuff, like e.g. Buddhism teaches, to solve all contradictions explicitly with non-thinking, always was beyond my capabilites.
There are many theories who want to explain consciusness with quantum theory, which is "explaining" the unknown with the weird. And many of these theories claim a kind of collective consciousness to which everybody can connect when he just follow some rules. I would say its more esoteric than science.
regards
Andi

For a photon there is no time, thus there is no distance. So seen from a photon´s point of view - literally - everything just is. The whole universe, from the Big Bang til the end, just one picture. And also this is, of course, only an analogy, because even for looking at a pic one would need time. But I guess thats the best analogy we can find, because we cannot imagine anything without time.
Seen from our point view, light travels with 300000km/s. And even thats slow given the distances in the universe. If a planet is 10 lightyears away from us, and we look through a telescope onto his surface, we see the surface as it was 10 years ago.
If some aliens were 65 million lightyears away, and they had a fancy telescope watching our earth, they would see the end of the dinosaurs. Simultaneity depends on where you are.
regards
Andi

Yes. Nobody claims that.
If we say, "you shall not steal" nobody claims that people suddenly do not want to steal any more. Why should it be true the other way round?
If you measure actions with UBP, you have a logic and objective scale. Wether one likes the result or not, wether one follows it or not, is a different matter.
The example only states, that it is, measured on a logical and objective scale, universally preferrable not to steal. So moral actions do not depend any longer on prophets carrying milled stones from mountains, or on any divine inspiration, but on a logical base.
regards
Andi

Right. If one asks people what capitalism is, the answer is most probably "that´s what the EZB (or FED) does." Well, what the central banks do is the exact opposite of capitalism. I have no doubt that government education does not correct this mistake deliberately, because now "capitalism" can be blamed for any recession.
Whenever possible, when I chat to somebody and, as it is sooner or later always the case, the topic goes to politics and the EU, I mention, just by the way, that capitalism is a blessing for mankind and the foundation of western civilisation.
It´s a showstopper every time
regards
Andi

A solution would be a gold standard.
Another solution, suggested by Friedrich A. v. Hayek, is to allow many currencies. Money is nothing else than a good, and in a free market everybody is allowed to produce any good he wants. The best product, in this the case the best money, will make its way.
To the video: Whats of importance today is, that money is controlled via central banking. Not only the sheer amout of money, especially the interest fixed by the FED resp. EZB. Nowadays interest is low, but this signal for investing, as explained in the vid, is not a signal of the free market, but a wish from the government to stimulate economy.
Normaly a low interest also is a sign that people and corporation have lots of savings. This is not the case today, both people and companies have debt. Thats one of the distortion central banking does to the economy, urging false investments.
regards
Andi

If one understands the Minkowski Diagramm than it´s obvious that the speed limit of c ist not only about speed.
Quote from Wiki:
Of course one can assume that every single scientist since 1905, who dealt with Einstein´s relativistic theory and its experiments, is part of a big cover up and only Mr. Xinhang Shen is correct. Every single physicist working for CERN, member of the brotherhood of liars, carefully choking the power in the accelerator. However this is what I call a conspiration theory.
As for spaceships to "boldly go where no man has gone before" have a look at the Alcubierre drive.
As I mentioned earlier, spacetime itself can (and does) expand faster than light.
rergards
Andi